


You Have to Change Your Life

by rachelautumn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Percy is a mensch, Reincarnation, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:39:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelautumn/pseuds/rachelautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy and Merlin used to share a cause and they used to share a lover.  Now they share a flat.    One day Percy brings home a boy who might put things right again.   The only problem is, whether you're reincarnated (check) or just seducing a much younger man (check) the new boy is always missing half the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Have to Change Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> (The title is the last line of a Rilke poem. I did a sort of after- image of the poem. It's not a translation)
> 
> Archaic Torso of Apollo
> 
> You didn't know  
> The boy who sat for the sculptor to look at  
> and carved his chest  
> And you didn't see it in color  
> But the white wreck that's left  
> This old thing  
> is more alive than you  
> It goes straight to the crotch.  
> You better change your life

* * *

Percy paused at the door. He was wearing most of his club outfit, a tight vest and leather pants. The final piece, a silver collar, still hung from his hand.

"I don't suppose you're coming." He looked behind him where Merlin sat on the couch. He wasn't ready to go out, lost in the soft cushions and the oversized fisherman's jersey he wore around the flat. Looking at him now, no one would ever guess that he'd practically lived in gold lame shorts one summer.

"You go on without me, Percy," Merlin nodded to the script on his lap. "I promised this guy I'd read his thing." 

"'So what if he has to wait a day?" Percy hated, hated to see Merlin holed up like this. "Who is it anyway, that Bernard kid, the one that's always calling?"

"He has potential, Percy."

"Right. And How much potential is there for a play about dysentery? How would you even stage that? Think about it. It's disgusting."

Merlin stifled a grin at Bernard's expense. Score 1 for Percy.

"Says you. It could be another "Raisin in the Sun". He just needs a reader."

Percy snorted.

"A reader. More like He just wants to get in your pants."

Merlin didn't blink. 

"I'm not the one who fucks boys half my age, Percy."

"Well maybe you should."

Merlin just shrugged and turned a page. The manuscript was laminated and stuck in a good quality binder. Probably Merlin had paid for it, which meant that Percy had, too. He stuck one large hand down in the center of the thing.

"Look at you moping over this dreck. You shouldn't be sitting on your arse, peering at things. You should be moving. You're a dancer, not an editor."

Percy almost felt guilty, watching him knead his leg, literally touching the sore point. 

"I can't do that, anymore, Perce." 

"Not at the theatre, no." He held back the urge to shake Merlin's thin frame till he shook like a noodle, anything to get him to move, "But you could come to the club now and again without hurting your knees."

He waited a beat, thinking that maybe this time because he had been angry for once, Merlin might listen, but Merlin kept still, and Percy knew he was just waiting for him to go away. He lifted his palm up, leaving a sweaty imprint over the plastic. "At least help me put the choke on. I don't want a stranger to do it. After all, you gave it to me, way back when." Percy dangled the choker a bit like he was trying to get a cat. 

Dangle, dangle.

That did it. Merlin narrowed his eyes and snatched the silver collar out of Percy's hand.

"You know I didn't give you that," he said in a cold voice that was a reminder of just how ruthless Merlin could be about this one thing, this one person. "And You know who did."

"That's right I do know and I haven't forgotten. But guess what? He may be gone, but we're still here, Merlin." He slapped his own chest, surprised at the sting of it through the exposed v-neck of the vest. "I'm still here. I think that's worth remembering, too."

Merlin's eyes glowed for a moment; it tested Percy's faith not to step back. He didn't. He knew the danger wouldn't last.

"You think I don't find you worth remembering? How can you even say that? You mean the world to me, too much, sometimes."

"If I were the world to you, you'd want to dance with me."

Sure enough Merlin had no answer for that. He slumped back. 

"I just can't go there, OK? It's better for us if I stay here. It's got nothing to do with you." Merlin lowered the hand that was clutching the choke collar to his chest. "Sorry I went all golemn on you, protecting the precious."

Percy could have pressed Merlin to the wall like the honest fighter he was. He could have forced him to say the words. "I love you, but you're not enough." He didn't. He was never entirely certain if it was Merlin's vulnerability or his power that stayed his hand. Either way, he didn't want to know what would happen if he did that. He just ruffled the already messy hair.

"That's alright. I'm glad you've still got some fight in you."

Merlin laughed at that and it had all of the brightness in it that belonged to him properly. Score two. He threw the manuscript down and unfolded himself from the couch. 

Watching him roll to his feet like a 20 year old, Percy wondered how Merlin kept his flexible spine. Supposedly, it was all down to the stretches he did at the barre that took up half the flat. There was also talk of some class he took with one of his guru friends, one he was always trying to get Percy to join, "so as not to get too muscle bound." 

Hah. A good swing on the kettlebells was all a man needed to keep limber. As if Percy would take advice, anyway, from some tiny bantam rooster of an Argentian who had more balls than sense. He doubted the class did anything for Merlin either. 

If Merlin was more flexible than he should be, if he drew the eye still like a an electric magnet, it was more likely an effect of his magic. Why wouldn't magic preserve you a little, if you were pickled it as Merlin was? Too bad there were somethings it couldn't bring back.

Merlin threaded the silver neckband through his fingers, stroking the limber metal with his thumb. His soft smile was inward but not sad. Their tiff had kicked up some good memories, and that alone made it worth it.

"He always said you looked so hot in this." Merlin-his Merlin, so dear to him after all- stood on his tiptoes, all gawky like the young boy he had been once, reaching one hand up as high as could on Percy's broad back. "Think you could crouch a little, Percy?"

"Stand on the couch and I'll give you a piggy back ride after." Percy patted his own back in invitation.

Merlin grinned.

"Oh well if you're going to let me ride you, I might just make an entrance after all. Ride-a-cock horse and all that."

"That's an obscene old rhyme. I can't figure out why they read it to children."

"Children were different then."

"True." And they had been. Percy remembered being a child, sleeping in the same bed as his parents, aware that they coupled under the blankets and not thinking much of it; he'd been more experienced and yet less savvy than children now. Merlin hadn't known a father, but he said the donkey that warmed his mother's hut had a huge cock that hung somewhat terrifyingly over the little corner pallet where he slept, which amounted to the same thing more or less as far as innocence went.

They both chuckled as Merlin's slim fingers, covered with rings now, performed the old office of dressing a knight in shining mail, though it was just a token, a small band of fine mesh silver.

His fingers brushed gently on Percy's neck and he laid his head briefly on the broad shoulder that had carried many friends at one time or the other. 

"I miss him always too, you know," Percy said after a while.

"It's not the same."

"Yeah, believe me I know."

"Percival..." Merlin looked up and Percy could see his the misery he kept down had risen to the unkind words. He regretted them. Merlin would worry now and he had never minded, not really that he was the less needed of the three of them. It had its compensations.

"Sorry. It's just that I miss you, too, out there. I miss you and feeling like I knew what I was doing things for. I wonder if we would have gotten there in the end."

"I've never stopped working for what he wanted."

"It's just words, Merlin." 

"Words count. When they're heard."

It was true. Merlin had a knack for finding a voice and getting it out there. The young directors and playwrights he championed always found an audience.

But it wasn't the same. Merlin was alone, while he was doing it. It wasn't like the first time, or even this last time, when there was a band of them. It took from him. Artist's were such children. They didn't have your back like fellow soldiers and Percy couldn't help him with this. He wasn't good with words. Merlin divvied himself up among those young leeches, whose cause was only ever really themselves and didn't keep anything back and it dulled him and it wasn't who he was and Percy was sick of it.

"Why do we even pretend you might come with?" Percy turned around and dared to look in Merlin's eyes. It seemed he had some anger left. He almost hoped he'd make them glow again and hurt something. "It's ridiculous. You haven't been out and about in almost 20 years. Not since..."

Merlin tossed his long hands up. 

"Fine! I like to feel I have options, Yeah? Maybe I need to be askable even if I do say no. Maybe, " his eyes shone a little with something held back, either power, or tears or anger or some combination of them all. "Maybe I need to know you won't be the last person I ever shag."

Percy had always wondered if Merlin slept with the Argentinian sometimes. Well now he knew.

"I didn't know you felt like that."

Merlin looked away. Percy recognized the reproach that Merlin didn't want him to see in his eyes. "Anyway it's good. No need to turn your neck like a damned swan. I'm glad to hear you say that." 

"Are you?" 

Merlin looked under his lashes in that way of his that made Percy want to snatch up all the fault of the matter to himself. He leant down to kiss Merlin just to the side of his mouth. 

"Yes, obviously. And you always have options, Christ Almighty. You of all people." He glanced in the hallway mirror at himself, bracing a bit for the image. He always had less hair than he expected. "Here's an idea: you could magic us 20 years younger right now."

Merlin took a little malicious pinch of Percy's backside. "Don't worry It's '80's night. You won't be the only geezer there."

"Hey, I look good enough that you wanted a squeeze."

Merlin looked him up and down. It sent the old frisson down his back. He'd forgotten how dark Merlin's gaze could be, when he wasn't being affable and A Great Help. 

"You do look good."

Percy wanted to see the look again, see it mirrored in sinuous movements on the dance floor, where Merlin turned into someone else or maybe just became more himself. 

"You do, too. You should come." Even while he was saying it he knew it was a waste of time. Merlin knitted himself back up and the wicked flirt disappeared. He shook his head, sat back down, taking the notebook onto his lap again. 

They both knew Merlin wouldn't go to a club anymore. He'd stopped the day his lover couldn't get up out of bed, when it was clear that the virus had won and his beautiful boy would never dance again.

"Go have someone, Percy." Merlin's face was fond and immovable, resigned only for himself, not for both of them because they weren't really together. "Look for Gwaine again," he added. "He's bound to turn up where there's a bar sooner or later."

Percy wished Gwaine was there, because he could probably have prodded Merlin off of that couch, or at least out of the hideous jumper, but Percy was what was left of the old crew and Merlin was just going to have to let him show him a little sugar the best way he knew, which was simple really. He never gave up.

"Nope. Hug first."

Merlin heaved a long sigh. 

"Up and down like a yoyo, it's hard on a dancer's joints," he muttered, but he let Percival swallow him up in one of his endless silent hugs. 

He always said it was like disappearing inside a tree.

Percy left, humming a little tune now they'd had their talk; He wasn't sure what song, maybe Madonna. His mind was on '80's night already. It felt like a lucky night. He'd probably pull.

He knew Merlin wouldn't mind, nor would he do the same. Merlin's heart lay always with Arthur. And Arthur was dead.

 

* * *

Arthur dragged himself through the crowd, shoulders catching aggressively on every other man there. None of them minded. In fact he got more than one offer.

"Hey there? Want to dance? Have a drink?" No one pushed him back into his own space. It was just one of many ways this club was different from the places he hung out with his friends.

Safely at the bar, he sipped a pint and waited. It was the high point of summer and not dark yet outside. He thought he might wait till night had fallen according to the clock. Or maybe he wouldn't.

"You sure you want to fill up on that stuff, kid?"

Arthur frowned at the bartender, hoping he looked as stern as his father did, but the man just laughed, tossing long brown hair out of his eyes.

"Relax. I'm just looking out for you." 

Arthur grunted. He didn't want anyone to care about him here. He just wanted to get laid, get it out of his system, so he could go back to his regular life, back to his teammates and the girls they knew, back to Sophia.

Ugh. Sophia.

"I'll have a whiskey, too." He made sure his tone said he was used to being obeyed. It was annoying when the guy just gave him a friendly wink.

"Out of the frying pan, into the fire, huh kid." 

Arthur found himself laughing at that.  
Yeah. Out of the frying pan into the fire. No shit.

What else do you call it when you go to a gay club to avoid a girl? 

And she's not just any girl. Oh no, Arthur's running from his crazy ex who knows his father, who even acts in the movies he makes so much money from. The movies are Christian entertainment and she always plays a nice girl who meets a nice boy. 

Arthur is nothing like the boys in his father's movies, though he looks like them. She's nothing like her character, either, for that matter. But she's the one who tattles. She'd like to tell Arthur's father all about the other girls he''s slept with, the clubs, the booze. She doesn't know about the guys, yet.

Arthur never meant to disappoint his father. He studied hard, he won most of his games. He tried to believe in his father's God, did believe in the actions, the soup kitchen part on Saturday nights when everyone else was partying.

It was just there was this other part of him that had to get out. Sometimes he thought if he didn't go to the clubs he would do something worse, maybe.

Oh he was in the fire alright. He was going down in flames.

Time to get out on the dance floor.

* * *

Arthur's club wear was very simple. Usually he wore a button down Oxford and jeans. On club days he took the shirt off and danced in his undervest.

It was just easier that way to go from the pub with his friends to some place he could pick up men. 

He found himself bounced like a ball in a rowdy group of Uni kids. They were a mixed group, women and men, all wearing aggressive neon colors and pointy things: belts and spikes that poked him and reminded him that he really was here in the flesh, made him aware of the parts of himself he didn't want to touch each other.

"Not a mosh pit." he told them. 

"Piss off, Blondie," The tallest boy, who seemed to be the leader said. The girl behind him exchanged looks with the bloke next to her.

"I think he should stay. He looks cute his undies."

The guy started to open his mouth. Arthur pushed on. They were not what he was looking for. He liked girls his own age, with round faces and breasts that trembled under his hands because the girl was nervous and excited, girls who were sweet like Sophia seemed at first. He didn't want someone who went to gay clubs to dance. And if that made him a hypocrite...Well it did. Yeah.

Men were different. He liked to learn something from them, but he didn't like wised- up, club kid types. He was looking for.. something else again...nothing he saw here.

He forced his way out of the scrum, dodging a series of twisting, dripping bodies only to be caught up on someone's broad chest. 

"Easy now," said a voice, rumbling somewhere over Arthur's head. "There's no rush, Pretty Thing. Anything you need I can take care of right here." The man pounded his chest with a large hand. Arthur looked up in the direction of the voice and up again. The guy was a good 5 inches taller than he was and he was by no means small. 

Even under the blue lights, it was clear big guy was a lot older than his usual hook ups, maybe in his '40's even. He was fit, but a little too chiseled, slightly hard.

He stepped forward and Arthur fought the urge to step back. This one could probably break Arthur in two. 

Arthur forced himself to brazen it out. He cocked his hip and looked up. Immediately, he was reminded of the first time he felt attracted to a man, how his father's friend, Mr. Meyers had loomed over him like this, to yell at him for breaking his whisky glass. He'd gotten hard off it and remained in an agony of confusion for months. 

As they looked at each other the man seemed to soften and his eyes rounded with recognition.

"Arthur?" 

Fuck. Maybe this was someone his father knew. Arthur fought the urge to back away. It would just look guilty.

"How do you know my name?" He attacked with his voice

"I don't really...I must have heard it from the bartender?"

It was a silly lie, but Arthur decided it didn't matter. It wasn't like any of his father's friends would admit to being at the Avalon, anyway. He stepped a little closer, into the man's orbit so that no one else's flailing limbs could touch him.

"Alright so I'm Arthur. Who are you?"

The man placed a hand on his shoulder. It was a heavy touch, arresting. He felt a tendril of interest, what might become arousal later, might lead to him on his knees at the back of the club. His mind flicked back to that time with Mr. Myers. What if he'd offered to suck his cock right there in the kitchen? What would have happened then?

"You don't recognize me." The man said: His eyes bored into Arthur's in a way that was slightly too intense. 

Arthur shook his head. 

"I know I haven't seen you before. I don't really see a lot of men ...like you," he began.

"You mean men my age." He looked back as if considering something for a minute and Arthur got the impression that he was rethinking things. Maybe he thought Arthur was too young for him. 

Arthur didn't want that. He didn't want to regret this chance. He wanted to be covered in that chest and held dangling from a big hand while his clothes were stripped from his body and terrible, wonderful things were done to him.

"I don't mind your age," he said.

"And I don't mind yours, either. At least, it looks like your balls have dropped." The man scanned over his body, brow raised. Arthur got the feeling he was making fun of him. 

"And it looks like you're fit enough to keep up with me. Assuming there's truth in advertising." Arthur made sure to be seen returning the eyefuck, angry enough to push back, though it was all bluster. He'd never had the chance to try out his stamina before. He'd never even lain down with a man. It was all standing up at the club.

The man just laughed. "There isn't, you know, Truth in advertising, but I'm for real. And if you are, too?" He shook his head. "You're something I've been looking for for a very long time.." He had never removed his hand from Arthur's shoulder. Now he let it fall over the curve of Arthur's arm and over his hip, dancing them together, not as fast as the music. "I have something to offer you." He spoke directly into Arthur's ear . "I could teach you a thing or two about yourself, something the kids here don't know. What do you think?"

Arthur thought that sounded good, actually, cheesy pick up lines aside. Looking like he did, that man had probably had a lot of experience of things Arthur had only read about: passionate affairs on Greek beaches, difficult romances, drug fueled orgies, tantric whatever. There were a lot of things Arthur wanted to do he hadn't had a chance to try yet. He'd had gay sex, strictly speaking, of the rushed and painful variety. He wanted something more.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, OK." The man's gaze was zeroed in on Arthur in a way that was really flattering. Other dancers were literally bouncing off of his huge frame and he didn't seem to notice. He was just waiting for Arthur's response. Arthur could feel his heart pick up. .

He gave his best flirtatious grin

"I think I'd like to dance. They did have dancing when you were young, yeah?"

Percy grinned back and came alive to the music

"We invented it, didn't we?"

"Well there've been some improvements since then." Before he could chicken out Arthur reached out for his waist, surprising the guy into stutter stepping forward into Arthur's grip.

Arthur was relieved to feel warm soft flesh through the tight vest he was wearing. This was a man after all like the other men he'd met and touched in this club, even if he was built like a marvel comic hero.

Fit Old Guy seemed to approve of Arthur's handsiness. He stepped even closer and when he grabbed Arthur in his broad grip, he started carving out the beat, hands splayed out over Arthur's hips, shaping them, spelling out words that Arthur hadn't said out loud. The voice on the sound track sang something that started with "I, I, I" and Arthur thought, 'yeah me, what I'm doing here.' The man seemed to pick up on his satisfaction, the first satisfaction with himself Arthur had felt since he was nine and he thought he was going to be a famous director. He squeezed Arthur's hip, hard.

"God I shouldn't do this, now," the man spoke into his ear, "I should wait, but I'm going to fuck you till you're inside out, Arthur." 

"Yeah." Arthur couldn't find any of the usual hurtful things that whispered in the back of his mind, when other guys came on to him. He felt available, open like a vat of something this man was scooping up by the heavy handful.

It was freeing.

He was somewhere outisde his body, watching the muscles bunch in this guy's arms as they held Arthur in place. He wondered what would happen if he just let himself fall. He tried it once. The guy's embrace held true. He didn't even stumble, caught writhing in the frame of the man's arms.

Overwhelming.

He could only imagine what it must be like on the man's cock, which just seemed to feel bigger with every brush against his groin.

"Let's go to the back," he said, breathless. "What's your name, anyway?"

To his surprise the man stepped away for a minute.

"I'm Percy," he said, as if it was some kind of warning. But Arthur had never heard of him. He wondered if Percy had a reputation, maybe he was an ex-con or something. He looked like someone who'd done time somewhere. God he didn't care. "I'm pushing you," Percy said. "I'm sorry. It was just so good to see you look so happy.."

Arthur felt far away from any objections. He wondered if this was what it was like to be high. Percy's fit of conscience just seemed silly. He looked up. Tapped a finger on the collar Percy was wearing all around his neck,

"I like this. It makes you look dangerous, but also like I could hold you back."

Percy took his whole jaw in one hand and Arthur stopped thinking altogether. Percy brought his lips softly to Arthur's. It was a long kiss, yet he never pressed harder than that first whispering. " Arthur. Arthur."

They'd given up all pretense of moving to the music. Percy had both hands in Arthur's hair, pressing his body very close, but not quite grinding, kissing now and then as if he hadn't meant to and couldn't help it, the way people did at the train station in movies, when the one who is leaving almost misses the train for one last kiss and then another. It was like nothing Arthur had ever felt. He forgot the thrill of doing something he wasn't supposed to do, forgot he was ever doing anything else.

"Will you come home with me?" Percy asked.

Arthur breathed harder through his open mouth. He never said yes; it wasn't smart. But he wanted to chase the warmth and pleasure he'd gotten so far.

"I wouldn't hurt you, Arthur." Percy said, eyes on his. Arthur nodded and Percy dropped his gaze and took Arthur's hand.

He hardly recognized himself as he followed Percy to the exit; he usually thought about himself when he pulled, how he felt guilty or how he needed to feel good. Now he was thinking of the man in front of him. Who was he? What made him come to a place like this? Why did he feel so safe with him even being led away to god knew where like this? He noticed they didn't knock into anyone; Percy cleared the way before him. It seemed effortless for him even though the crowd was thicker than ever with sunset finally coming.

Once they were out on the street, standing by the ropes, he wondered if it would be awkward waiting for a cab. He'd never done this before, never waited when there wasn't a gaggle of them all shouting and laughing together. Percy seemed more subdued too, but when he pulled them together again, Arthur felt that he had never felt so welcome in someone's arms, not even his father's, especially not his.

Percy's hand was gentle smoothing away Arthur's fringe.

"I want you to see where you're going." he said, though Arthur had the feeling more that he was trying to arrange his hair some way that he liked. "You remind me of someone," Percy added. He paused, biting his lip and his voice came out hoarse a little. "Do you mind if I share you?"

Did he? No one had ever asked Arthur that before. He'd never had a threesome at all, for that matter.

"I don't understand." he said, "Do you have a boyfriend, or something?"

"Or something." Percy agreed.

Arthur squinted. The sun was setting high on the horizon, reflecting off the cab windows as it pulled up. He hesitated as Percy opened the door.

"Are you sure he won't mind?"

"I'm sure. He'll be glad, so glad you have no idea."

 

The ride was over in minutes. They could have walked. Certainly, with where he lived, in one of the trendier parts of the city, Percy could afford to take a cab on a whim. Arthur knew lots of girls who did that because of their ridiculous shoes. What was Percy's reason? Had he been eager to make sure Arthur wouldn't get away? 

 

There was a doorman, stood in front of an elegant limestone building. As they approached, he opened the door for them with a gloved hand. Only Percy's firm hand on his low back, stopped Arthur from bolting as the doorman looked them over. Arthur could smell disdain under a neutral expression. He'd learned at home.

"Don't mind him, Arthur" Percy said, as they waited for the lift. "Gilbert is new. He'll learn to meet our eyes in time."

"You said that where he could hear you!" For seem reason that made Arthur feel a little giddy. Percy gave his hand a squeeze.

"You have to tell people what to expect so they can improve. I had a boss who taught me that." 

A boss. Part of Percy's world, Percy's adult world, where Arthur would never belong even when he got a job because he would have himself under control by then. Be married to a woman.

"I don't want to talk about work."

"Right." Percy sighed. Arthur hoped he hadn't reminded him how young he was. He tried to inch his hand under the tight leather of Percy's trousers, but he stopped his hand. "Not yet, sweetheart." 

"Oh yeah." Maybe he was being vulgar or something, too overt. Arthur had never been with a man in public before. In his other life, his regular life he only left the club with girls and men stayed in the back room.

In the lift Percy traced Arthur's face with one finger.

"You're such a sight for sore eyes, Arthur."

"I like you, too, what you look like, I mean." Arthur hated it when he sounded awkward. 

Percy smiled.

"I know you do."

* * *

 

It was a little unnerving, now that they were away from the roar of the club to be alone with this stranger. The flat was huge, dim and red in the dying light of summer. Percy didn't talk and he didn't turn on the lights.

He led Arthur to the lounge and placed him carefully on the leather couch. It was big; it would have to be given Percy's size. Arthur almost made a joke about it, but he found he couldn't get his voice box working. Percy was just staring at him now, not aggressively, not to seduce, just drinking him in. Arthur felt as if he were drifting in eyes whose color he couldn't even quite discern. Here he was, perched on some invisible line of the leather couch, lost in someone else's life.

"I'm sorry." Percy said at first, "I can't stop staring at you. It must seem a little odd."

"You are kind of working a superman look, I guess I should have expected the x-ray vision."

"You always thought you were funny."

"What? Are you talking about that person I remind you of?" It was a little creepy. Arthur looked behind him quickly, counting the paces to the door.

"Hey, no," Percy turned his chin back and Arthur found himself responding again, feeling the flood of safe warm feelings that he couldn't explain, that didn't make sense. He tried to remember if there was a drug that made you feel like that. But Percy hadn't given him anything.

"Is your boyfriend here?" he asked. The big man closed his eyes and opened them.

"He's not my boyfriend, exactly."

"But you sleep together, right?" Percy just stared at him. He didn't want to answer the question, it seemed. Arthur let out an irritated huff.

"Now I'm here you're not sure he'd like that you pulled some kid, right? It's OK, I get it, I think I can find my way back from here just fine."

"No," Percy put a restraining hand on Arthur's arm. Arthur looked at it and he slowly let go. "Of course you can go if you want to. I hope you won't." He looked away and when he looked back again his eyes were once again pleased and calm. "That's our stuff. Don't let it bother you. What Merlin...what my friend will think when he sees you won't be a problem. I just don't know which way it's going to play out. What it will mean for us."

"Because of this other person I'm supposed to look like." 

"Forget I said anything about that. I shouldn't have said anything about that yet. It wasn't fair. You're you. You're an 18 year old kid I just met."

"I'll be 19 by Christmas." Percy laughed and leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"An 18 year old kid, who's brave and funny and himself."

"I'm not brave." Arthur pushed him away. He was a coward, running from skinny girls and lying to his father. Percy held him down and looked at him.

"Yes, you are. I can tell. You're going to prove it to me now."

Arthur shivered. This was it. He was really going to have that huge cock in him.

Percy stripped off his vest and the tight leather bottoms. It wasn't a tease. Arthur could hardly see him, but soon he could smell his aftershave, the way it mixed with his sweat, and he could feel the swing of his cock as the big man crawled on top of him and caged him in.

"Jesus," Arthur breathed.

"Shhh." Percy feathered kisses over Arthur's face as he undid his jeans with one hand. "You can do this. I know I don't intimidate you."

Arthur wasn't so sure, but he wanted it to be true, so he wriggled out of his jeans till he was just in his undervest and boxers.

As if he'd just been waiting for that, Percy sprang off of him then and arranged himself on the couch. Even in the dim light Arthur could see how big his cock was. He placed a tentative hand over it, felt it widen and warm under his hand.

"Ahhh, you've got a good grip. I'm not surprised." Percy's face was caught beneath a grimace and a smile. Arthur felt a little bolder now. He got a hand around the base of Percy's cock and lowered his mouth over the head of it.

"Oh..that's. Wait, Arthur. I don't want you to do that yet." Percy pulled him up by the head. I don't want to take from you that way. Not until I've talked to my friend."

"Right. The one who we're supposedly not thinking about. "

Arthur could feel himself pouting. There was no doubt in his mind now, that he wanted his mouth on that cock. No way he could take all of it, but he wanted to try.

Percy squeezed Arthur's shoulder.

"I thought if I wrestled around with you a bit, you might remember something."

"Remember what?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." 

For the first time there was an awkward silence between them.

"Don't you want to tell your friend I'm here?" Arthur wasn't sure why he suddenly felt the need to get that meeting over with.

"No." Percy reached over to pull Arthur onto his lap. He was facing away and Percy's cock was hot all along his back, but Percy made no attempt to grind or penetrate. He breathed into Arthur's ear. "Things will be different once Merlin sees you and I want to have this moment with you, just us, like it is now."

"So why don't you want to look at me?" Arthur twisted around and clambered forward, wincing as he pinched the skin of Percy's thighs with his feet. "I thought you liked looking at me." 

"I do. I can't look away."

"So don't"

"Arthur, you don't understand."

He forced Percy to look at him. There wasn't much light left so it was difficult to read his expression. Their kisses spoke, though. Arthur had never listened to a kiss so intently before.

The meaning of his own was painfully obvious, he thought. See me, want me, approve of me. If he hadn't felt so turned on, he would have been ashamed of how loud and wet and unfocussed his assault on Percy's mouth was. And Percy kept pulling back, controlling it more.

"I'm sorry, I'm probably drooling on you, right?"

Percy finished the kiss, tracing his face with light finger tips. 

"Never be ashamed of your passion, Arthur. That's not what there's too much of in the world."

 

"Yeah, but I don't have to make a mess."

"So you think you should be perfect, huh?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"I think I shouldn't be gross."

Percy ran his fingers through Arthur's hair and he tried to shake them loose, but couldn't evade Percy's mouth, kissing him again.

"A little gross needs to be tolerated, even by you. It's part of pleasure."

Arthur wanted to protest, seeing how he hated how Percy was laughing at him like he knew everything, but the next kiss was very good, went straight to his crotch, wet on propose. He heard himself gasp and forced himself to move away.

"I want to touch you now."

"All in good time." Percy was just looking at him again. It was a little unnerving and very frustrating.

"It's so good to see this arrogant nose." Percy traced a finger over it.

"Oi, there's nothing wrong with my nose."

"It's no insult. It suits you. It suits the kind of person you are. You're going to make things happen."

Arthur shook his head. What Percy was saying was nice and all, but it didn't belong in the room where he was going to fuck the biggest man he'd ever had and have his first threesome to boot.

"It's true. You'll see." 

"Shut up. You sound like my Dad." He didn't want the pep talk. It interrupted what Percy's touch was saying, "I see you. I want you. I will protect you."

He gripped Percy's rock- like shoulders and waited for his eyes to witness, mostly sure he'd see approval. Then he arched his back up like girls did, though he did not feel like a girl, and pushed his pelvis back up and down on Percy's undeniable cock, striking against it with his own. He felt the wet start at his tip, saw Percy close his eyes then feeling it too. He leaned his head back to expose his throat and thrust again, knowing that each scratch of pleasure was felt by Percy, too. Even with his pants still on, it was more like losing his virginity than losing his virginity was.

He gave a cry that went deeper than lust. Percy let loose a little groan.

"OK Arthur, you little pest. . But we're got to slow it down. I'm going to turn you around, OK?. If I look at you any longer, I won't be able to control myself. And I want you untouched for later."

Arthur traced a finger around Percy's collar. It was so hot on him. He loved the way the jewelry just made him look more masculine. 

"What if I don't want to be untouched?" But he was already letting Percy maneuver him backwards onto his brawny chest.

Percy pulled him closer with one arm. His breath was heavy, laying down the rhythm for whatever would come after.

Arthur tried to arch up again, but Percy only pushed him down.

"Not yet."

He lavished breathy, gentle kisses on Arthur's neck and shoulders, pulling off his shirt so slowly he hardly ruffled his hair. Now that he couldn't see, Arthur found it easier to relax back into the unfamiliar body, easing into the feeling of being surrounded by the heat and scent of a man. He felt desirable, sexual, but also taken care of. He hadn't even known those two things went together. Touching was always tick-tocking between indulgence and responsibility. What he sneaked for himself and what he offered certain girls: corsages, publicity stills, candy.

"Oh God, fucking touch me already. I want your hands on me, please." 

He felt Percy smile into his shoulder.

"That's it, ask for it. God you're so beautiful. And good too. I bet you're a good boy." Arthur tried to protest, because he wasn't good a lot of the time, not good enough, but Percy just leaned forward and pumped something from a container on the coffee table. "You are a good one" he murmured, reaching into Arthur's boxers for his cock. "You know all about duty, I bet and what your father wants, but we're going to please you now. And that's OK. That's better than OK. It's something you need to do."

Arthur wanted to believe him, he did believe him. Percy was experienced, was in the world. He probably lived his life smack in the center and not just sideways the way Arthur did, always in his own periphery, as if he was peering out of a robot suit. 

" I'm going to make you feel good. Don't think too much, OK?"

"Yeah, OK, no thinking." 

The man stroked slowly, relentless, his eyes always on Arthur as his hand worked. Sometimes he stopped to kiss Arthur's mouth, kisses he could hardly manage to return with his mouth already open. As Arthur began to moan the kisses grew harder and wetter, but the motion of the hand never varied. He could feel the heat coming, his balls tightening, but he tried not to come because it was delicious and because he was dreading a little bit what what would come after.

Then Percy bit him in the shoulder, a sudden sharp pain and Arthur found himself shouting in a darkened room. 

He tumbled off of Percy's lap already embarrassed at how quickly he'd come. 

"Hey now, don't hide from me." Percy lifted his chin up. "I loved doing that. I loved watching you come."

Percy was looking at him, a naked man with a huge cock and roughened hands. Arthur blushed, staring at the coffee table because that was easier than meeting eyes with the strange man who had just serviced him, or peering down at his own flacid cock, where he could feel it stuck to his thigh. He pulled the boxers back up over himself.

Percy laughed. "Hey now, don't hide from me. You said you were brave."

"You said I was brave."

Arthur dared to look up once more and he was stunned by what he saw in Percy's face. He knew that his father loved him, in his own way and his sister. This look was different; it had something of self discipline in it, like Percy didn't mind what could go wrong, he would take the fall for it, for Arthur or for whoever it was that Arthur reminded him of. He must have been stellar, not just some kid who "looked good in his undies."

Percy took his hand, limp with surprise and kissed the knuckles of it.

"My little Prince."

"Don't." Shame filled up Arthur's unworthy mind. And it wasn't even the usual. Usually he didn't feel like the person he was defiling himself with mistook him for a more loveable person than he was. 

"Don't what?"

"Don't call me that. I hate that book about the poncy little alien. Did it for French A levels and everyone started calling me that.'

Percy's eyes hooded with amusement. Arthur relaxed a little. This was them the way it had been so far. 

"Did they? That's interesting. They must have seen something."

What, that he was alone in a place with no air? That he was wasting his time pining after some rose he couldn't have? That he was the inheritor of a dead planet? It all hit home, actually. 

"It's not meant in a nice way." Arthur shrugged. "I had a long coat, You know kind of like in the book. I got rid of it."

"And maybe you're a bit of a spoilt prince?"

Arthur shrugged again. 

"Anyway I'm not little." As soon as he said it, he felt stupid because compared to Percy, of course, he was.

"No, you're right. You're a fair chunk, but I think maybe I might be able to carry you, my Lord. If you let me."

Before Arthur had time to object, Percy was already scooping him off the couch.

He carried him through the dark into the bedroom. It didn't seem to cost him much effort. Arthur had never felt so light. Then the switch turned on and Arthur saw the the other man on the bed.

He was a thin, rumpled figure, wrapped up in a blanket. It fell from his shoulders as he stood to see who had opened the door, yanking earbuds out of large ears.

"Percy" he said. "I didn't hear you come in." 

He'd been reading. Arthur saw the book in his hand, the bedside lamp, it's light drowned now in the larger light of the room. He hadn't expected this, hadn't expected Arthur. "Hello" the reader said, voice amused, now. "What have we got here?" Then his eyes fell on Arthur's face and they widened almost comically. He put a hand on his mouth and then slowly lowered it.

Percy put Arthur down at the foot of the bed, where he stood uselessly, waiting for a verdict.

The other man, the one Percy had called Merlin, looked at Arthur but his eyes snapped back to Percy's. A world was in that one glance, and not a world that Arthur was part of. Percy shook his head and Arthur didn't know what all was said, but he saw the effect on the other man. 

He trembled and sort of collapsed on himself, holding out a hand to the dresser while he squeezed his eyes shut as if he'd been struck dizzy.

He was obviously someone who didn't know how to hide his expression as the grown men he knew and Arthur himself did. For a moment, Arthur was afraid that Percy had gotten it wrong, and this man, his lover, was jealous and devastated. It raised a horrible winded feeling in him. He had never really thought that he could hurt someone so much older like that. For the first time he considered that his father really meant it when he said that Arthur's sins pained him.

Then the man shook his head and laughed and it was so joyful he knew he must have been mistaken. He looked like a kid shaking the water out of his hair, or like his sister trying to make her new long earrings hit her chin, the first ones she'd been allowed that weren't just posts, so he'd been careful to buy her the dangliest he could find.

 

When the man, Merlin, moved, Arthur saw that the over sized clothes were a lie. This man obviously worked with his body. He closed in on Arthur where he was frozen in place in three fluid steps, reaching out an elegant hand, brushing Arthur's fringe from his eyes. "Do you mind, pretty boy if you remind me of someone else?" The man's voice was low with a slight Irish lilt. 

Arthur shook his head.

The man wiped one long thumb across Arthur's face, but it was his own eyes that dropped a tear. He had dark blue eyes with long lashes. He didn't acknowledge the tear.

"Good, then Percy's going to fuck you for me. Give me a minute?"

He smiled coyly over his shoulder as he disappeared into the en suite. Arthur had the impression that he was some kind of performer. Then he came back with condoms and lube in his ringed hands. He laid everything aside and stood waiting.

Percy took the cue, pushing Arthur gently to the bed and then moving away. It reminded Arthur of a circle game, how the last player fled the middle to clear the way for someone else's turn. 

He felt - not afraid- but aware that he might be afraid. He'd been moored with Percy, imagined Merlin slipping into the space where they lay safe and comfortable, Percy's arm reaching wider to include him. Now he was exposed. Who knew how he would be used?

It was Merlin who strode forward. He straddled Arthur, hardly resting his weight, but skimming over his lap Through the material of his trousers, Arthur could feel the narrow bones and the working muscles of hips and glutes.. The neck of his jumper gaped open and wafted the scented heat of him over Arthur's face. He smelled familiar yet new, like two flavors that he'd never mixed before, lemon and cinnamon, perhaps 

"You smell like something really good."

Merlin chuckled,a resonating sound that was also somehow familiar and yet better than he'd expected, like a tinny sound finally picked up by a speaker. 

"So, you're Arthur?"

"Yes." Had Percy mentioned his name?

"So what do you like, Arthur?" Arthur's eyes flicked over to Percy who was in the chair, still naked, his hand on his cock.

"Ah," Merlin leaned back, "You like Percival. Is it because of all those muscles of his? Or is that big thing that he has in his hand right now? Or is there something else about our Percival?"

Arthur struggled to put into words how Percy was frightening but also made him feel safe, how he took care of things.

"He's a man."

"Ah." Merlin didn't accuse him of being coy or crude "That's what I like about him, too"

Merlin locked eyes with Arthur as he trailed a hand over Arthur's groin, leaving heat behind it. Arthur's cock filled up again, hard as if he'd never spent.

"And what about me. Do you like me?"

Arthur looked at the plump bow mouth poised over him, at blue eyes that surprised him into thinking that colored irises were unnatural, some whimsy of God's to put the colors of minerals in a man's body. 

"I will, I think."

The answer seemed to unlock Merlin's movements. He plunged forward but did not fall, hovering over Arthur with his weight in his arms like it was nothing and sucking  
kisses of his lips like he had a right to it. And he did have a right to it. Arthur felt himself ceding it all up right away to the thin, gentle man who'd shed his mantle and immediately opened for Percy and Arthur, cried even, and to the taught man prowling over him now, pushy as all fuck. Arthur strained his hips towards Merlin's but couldn't reach, redirecting the push into his lips instead.

Because this was apparently what his mouth was for.

He heard Percy's cock smacking in his fist and saw him seated in a chair, mouth open, one hand on his thigh, waiting for them before it touched anything. He continued to be aware of him there though he was blind now, eyes closed until Merlin pulled away.  
.  
"You are so beautiful," he whispered. "But I'm sure everyone tells you that?"

Arthur shook his head. He thought the man above him was beautiful. He was nothing like Percy, not a square jawed type, not even completely human looking. He looked a bit like a cat or an elf or something. But beautiful.

"Maybe everyone tells you that?" he suggested.

He smiled. Arthur immediately wanted to please him again, to see it repeated.

"Sometimes. There's one person that did."

"The person I look like."

"Yes," Merlin put one finger on Arthur's mouth and then followed it with a kiss on the same spot. "Let's not talk about that."

He stripped Arthur of his boxers and then removed his clothes, revealing a body that was like the curves he used to make on the lathe in wood shop in long slow turns. There were no blocks of large shapes like Percy. He would be hard to draw.

And yet so easy to see. He was all contrasts. He had a long uncut cock with a piercing at the head of it, all silver in the red. Even as Arthur watched it dripped a little wet onto the metal. Merlin saw him looking and ran his ring finger around the tip of the ball, looking up under dark hair, shaggy as a boy still growing so fast even his hair is always over taking his ears. And yet he was pale as a buried thing, skin contrasting with hair and with the shadows in the room. 

How could this be the same person who'd looked so lost and dowdy when they came in? Arthur forgot all about taking his image; he wanted to add to the color, streak him all over with gold paint.

Instead, Arthur reached out a hand and grabbed the cock, his thumb honing in on the little ball piercing like it knew it already. Merlin didn't gasp or close his eyes. He smirked.

"Straight for the grab, Arthur?"

Percy barked out a laugh.

"Give the kid a break, Merlin."

Merlin chuckled.

"Nope, Arthur's not the type to want a break. Are you Arthur?"

"No." 

"But Percy's gotten you all loosened up, hasn't he?"

Arthur looked up where Percy was smiling down on Merlin. Body touching him casually everywhere, thigh, cock, hip, hand. If it hadn't been obvious that they were lovers before, it was now.

"He's come once. The way you like."

"Turn over," Merlin commanded, already pulling at his hip. 

Arthur was on his stomach with Merlin behind him, face right up by Percy's feet where he crouched at the head of the bed, naked and still, like a sculpture, no like a soldier, waiting.

"Wow." Arthur raised his eyebrow at the big cock that was still swinging there. He definitely had to find out if he could make Percy break out of this guard mode. He pulled himself out of Merlin's hands a little to suck on it. Merlin laughed and Percy caught his breath.

Delighted with the encouragement, Arthur took it deeper. Percy moaned this time, but he didn't move, so Arthur doubled his speed and suction. It was hard. He needed his hands to pull himself up. It was a brutal bent back push up everytime he lowered his mouth onto Percy. He sucked as long as he could but soon he was impaling his throat.

Percy growled something about egos and brats and finally put a hand on Arthur's head. He made no more attempts at pulling back and Arthur definitely choked, and recovered, and choked again. Percy didn't stop him now, making incoherent little grunts. He felt stupidly proud of himself, of his body for making this happen

"Arthur, look what you've done to him, love," Merlin said. He grabbed Arthur by the hair, forced him off "You have to learn that you can't do all the work."

Over his head Percy and Merlin were kissing, a canopy or a bridge, surrounding him with the hum and smack of bodies meeting. This was what he thought clubs would be like, but they weren't.

"Hey I'm down here."

"Oh we'll get to you. But you can't make Percy come yet. You're too forward, Arthur." Merlin chuckled. "Of course you are, but don't worry, I'll keep you in line."

Merlin's kiss was a lovely, biting punishment. Arthur was tired now. He sank back onto his haunched and spread his knees and submitted.

He was blind, nose buried in the soft sheets. They smelled of Merlin, so that he seemed to be both below and above him. He knew Percy was somewhere, too. He thought he could recognize the heat of him in the room. 

It was both their hands on him, he was sure, as Merlin pulled him asunder; he could feel Merlin's cold rings and Percival's callouses. Arthur didn't know how long Merlin's long finger was stroking up him, meandering all dry in little worm trails over all Arthur's body. He waited patiently for it run up his taint, or to join a thumb and pinch the nipple that was almost too far down to reach.

Finally when he had given up expecting a good touch, there was a wet tongue zeroing in on him. He let out something like a sigh and a groan. He could hear Percy,

"Yeah, love to see that Merlin. Takes to a tongue up his arse like a duck to water.

Merlin's laugh vibrated from his throat into Arthur's body. 

"Always so greedy, you are."

"Yeah," Arthur felt more than greedy. He felt like a complete whore. He widened his stance and called out for more, pushing back even on the hard and soft, tireless tongue there. He had never done this before. Now he wanted to do it forever.

"I can see Percy hasn't breeched you. I like to do that myself." Merlin's voice was hoarser now.

Then Merlin slipped his fingers in, twisting. Arthur gasped once before he could help it. There was always a moment of panic at first, when this happened in his other encounters. This was scarier than that because he didn't know exactly what was happening. Merlin's hand was an insinuation that hurt less but assumed more than the by-the-numbers preparation he'd known in the past, as if Merlin knew exactly the limits of his body's give and walked the line, pushing, plucking. Oh God. He was getting cored already and it felt... "Good." he said.

"Yes, I know, lover, and you'll be about to come in a minute, but I'm not going to let you."

"Why not?" 

Arthur didn't think he could come from this. The stretch was nice, kind of achy in a way that zapped some other nerves and when he hit the sweet spot inside, it didn't get numbed out from repetition, but kind of sparked more heat. Actually, if those fingers would just... Arthur began to push back on the fingers, trying to make the maddening disruption turn into a rhythm that went somewhere.

He opened his eyes to see Percy staring at him, cock straining up according to its own physics, no hand to hold it up. Really it needed a little company. He opened his mouth. It was easy now to lick and suckle when he got the chance without worrying about if was going to be enough to get the guy off. All his strength was going to fucking himself on Merlin's fingers.

What do you think, Percy. Should we let him come?."

Percy laughed instead of answering. Had he laughed before?

Arthur felt his body lose Merlin's fingers, then he lost his place on the bed as Percy pulled him, spinning him around and up on his lap. He hadn't even known he could be pulled up by one arm. He let out an "Oh" of surprise.

He could see Merlin in front of him now, smiling. One hand on his cock, wet and glinting a little. His mouth was plump and also wet; Arthur had the feeling that it was stretched open like he was. He wanted to rim his tongue around the opening there.

"I can't reach you," he said and kind of reached up a hand. Merlin caught it and bent his head over the fingers, kissing each tip.

"I'm watching you. And we'll be together. We'll come together, alright?"

He let go and wrapped his long fingers around his cock, the rings and the stud all silver. .  
Arthur watched Merlin's eyes slowly dissapear as he pleased himself, only to force themselves open so that he could watch Arthur's face. Arthur knew his mouth was open, relaxed but he was breathing more like he did after a run. Here was Percy's arm doing all the work, yet it was his chest expanding and contracting under it in double time. Here was Percy, all around him, sweaty enough to drip a little on Arthur's shoulder. Percy's cockhead was even wetter and hotter finally poking where he'd expected to feel it hours ago, at his hole. But it was Merlin's eyes on him he felt. 

"Yeah, take it all in Arthur. I told you I was going to fuck you inside out."

Arthur felt Percy's voice more than heard it.

The words were an incitement and his body concurred, bearing down opening up.

It was Merlin who cried out and all of Percy's strength untethered as he filled Arthur again and again.

He wasn't the gentle lover Arthur would have guessed, ruthlessly pulsing his own pleasure into Arthur's hole, his eyes somewhere above. Then the arm released and he could feel Percy's nose nuzzling in his hair.

"So beautiful to fuck Arthur. I told you you could do anything."

"Please, please."

Arthur wondered if they would ever let him come. It felt so hot inside him, not just because it was good but because he was stretched white. He tried to reach forward to touch his own body, only to feel the yank of forearm like a thick root. He cried out, "Merlin!" asking for something that seemed to be in that name. Merlin's eyes were huge in his face. His heart beat was visible in his thin chest.

"Percy's waiting for me, Arthur." Merlin traced his jawline with a long dry palm. Arthur had never thought the gesture could be obscene . He held Arthur's hips in the same loose grip and lowered his mouth over Arthur's tight, tight cock.

Ecstasy. Hot licks of it. Arthur felt himself bucking up, but Percy wouldn't let him. Merlin leaned back on his heels and Percy strangled the base of his cock in his fingers till the pulsing faded a bit.

"Arthur," Arthur rolled his head up to find Merlin's voice. "I want to look at you while you come." Merlin rocked back on his heels and his eyes were so hungry; Arthur understood that this moment was what the entire event had been for.

Percy's hand stroked then as it had before, even and relentless and this time Arthur did not shyly allow it, but fought and bucked as hard as could, trying for something he didn't understand until it happened. Merlin's eyes seem to glow for a moment. Then his semen splattered hot all over Arthur's chest and belly. Arthur arched so hard Percy almost lost him as he gave out more pleasure, longer and sharpter than before. Behind him he heard a bellowing that didn't end for a long moment after the rest was still. "Well then, Percy," Merlin sniggered. "Shut up, Merlin," Percy answered. * * * 

They lay altogether, the measure of a few, slower heart beats. Then Arthur felt Percy's weight shift off the bed, heard him strain the floorboards.. 

"Back in a tick," he said, looking back at them a moment.

Soon the shower was running and Arthur was alone with the other man. He expected to feel nervous or ashamed, but Merlin merely lay down beside him and pulled Arthur onto his side so that they were facing each other. His eyes seemed huge as they followed the contours of Arthur's face and hands. They seemed to get bluer as they stared. 

And then he smiled.

Joy transformed his face. Arthur felt he was looking at someone his own age, younger even, a boy.

"Arthur," He didn't say anything else, as if Arthur's name completed everything. They lay there for a few minutes that Arthur didn't want to disturb of some blanketing feeling, that comforted but could also be thrown off by a careless movement.

 

"Merlin." Percy stood in the doorway, dressed now. His eyes on the man, Merlin, alone. "Do you want me to go?"

"No," Merlin said, "I don't want to make Arthur uncomfortable. He doesn't know me."

Just like that the exaltation left him and just as suddenly as he had looked young before he now looked old.

"You don't make me uncomfortable,"Arthur blurted out, wanting to bring back the moment.

"Don't lie." Merlin's voice was insufferable. Why did people think being older meant they could read Arthur's mind?

"How do you know I'm lying. You don't even know me." he muttered.

"Exactly."

Percy tossed Merlin a damp flannel. Merlin tossed it back.

"You'd better Percy. I can't"

"OK, but then I'm going to give you a moment, yeah? I've got something I need in the study."

Percy cleaned Merlin first, wiping with flirty little strokes, kissing each one after. He obviously knew where Merlin was ticklish because he squirmed subtly, stifling giggles.

"Get off of me you silly git." 

Percy grinned. 

"Nah. I like a thorough job,always have done."

Just when Arthur was beginning to feel left out, Percy bent over Arthur and turned his attentions to him. Merlin's head never moved as his eyes followed every swipe of the cloth.

First Percy wiped the sweat off his chest. This was a more serious affair than what he did to Merlin; he was careful, not looking at him, not looking away. The flannel smelled of lavender and sage, more like tea than soap. It smelled right, though, somehow familiar. When he had cleaned him as thoroughly as a cat, with quick buffing strokes, he leaned over Arthur and kissed each eye and his forehead and his mouth. Arthur could feel the difference in the air as Percy stood up away from him. It felt colder.

"Good bye, Arthur. See you round the Avalon. If it comes to you that you want to see me... Well, I'll make sure to tell Gilbert to let you in." Then he got up. Arthur felt Merlin's hand on his back.

Percy watched him and Merlin for a minute at the door, while Merlin scratched his back, soothing with his finger tips. He smiled. "Go easy on the boy, now Merlin," he said. Then he dimmed the light-switch and closed the door.

As Percy walked away, Arthur had a feeling that there was something he should have told him first, but he couldn't think what it would be.

Merlin was silent with him in the near dark room for quite a while. His fingertips turned to stroking and then to kneading. Arthur found himself almost nodding off under the massage.

"So do you know what you want to be, Arthur?"

"Yeah, a fucking fireman." Arthur rolled out of reach.

"I'm not making fun of you and you don't have to smile like that."

"Yeah, sorry." Arthur could feel the remnants of his snigger around his mouth still. "You sound like the school counselor, though."

"Oh dear," Merlin muttered this and it sounded like something else into Arthur's neck. There was a zing of heat that penetrated every new knot and old scar from rugby. "I wasn't aware that the counselor had his hands on you like this."

"Shit, no," Arthur forced his breath out as something unpinged somewhere. "I haven't slept with her either, obviously, sorry. Just, I don't know. I don't want to think about that stuff yet. I'm just trying to make it to Uni."

Merlin didn't say anything; he massaged lower, his hands digging deep into the muscles of Arthur's arse. Remembering all the things that had happened to that part of  
his body had Arthur flushing.

As if reading his mind, Merlin leaned lower and kissed right above the rise of him.

"I hope you're remembering what we did here, while I'm touching you."

"Yeah."

Merlin paused, waiting. Arthur got the feeling that in the end everyone always did what Merlin asked without really knowing why

"I used to want to make movies like my dad." He hadn't admitted this, even to himself, for a very long time. "Only I didn't want to just fund them, you know; I wanted to direct."

"That's funny, I produce a lot of plays."

"Well, no offense, but I'm a lot more interested in making art than writing checks."

"Oh so you you don't think that creative people need feeback and guidance."

Arthur felt irritation fizzing together with a sad disappointment. When Percy left he'd hoped that this other guy, Merlin might want to offer something, he didn't know what, something a child would imagine like a pearl ring, or a secret or a kinky new toy, anyway. Was he stupid to think there was some special reason they'd been left alone?Other than what was looking to be some career counseling?

"Hey I don't know, OK? Maybe plays are different. I don't ever see plays, except the panto at Christmas and Dad tried to get me to do that Easter thing with the cross once."

"Well if you want to learn how stories get across to audiences, you should see the real thing, on stage, with real people, not just flat images with all the risk ironed out."

Arthur didn't think much of the films his dad made, thought they were bilge water, actually, but he hated it when people acted like something had to be on stage to be smart.

"That's not true! There is plenty of risk in film; it's just the performance is pulled forward in time and that's magical too and..."

Merlin's eyes were bright and amused. "You tricked me." Arthur sank himself back down on the bed. He didn't want to think about this. "I'm trying not to care so much about that because no one else cares about it." He thought of Sophia and her eye rolling whilst she read her lines with him. 

"I think that's exactly when you should care the most." Merlin's voice was like his finger, twisting into the core of him.

"It doesn't matter." Arthur didn't want to think about this now. Film was his father, his father's province, this here, fucking two guys was not that. "Anyway, that was when I was small. I don't know if I'm going to even try that anymore." 

There was a long pause. Merlin resumed the wandering stroking of his fingers, but he felt far away, humming a few bars to himself of something sort of a tonal. Finally there was a squeeze, surprisingly hard on his shoulders.

"Arthur, if you do to go into the theatre, and even if you don't." Arthur could feel Merlin's shrug ripple through his body. "You know where I live. I help all the kids."

Merlin sounded like a complete know-it-all like every older person he could think of.

"What makes you think I need help?"

"What makes you think needing help is weak?"

Arthur huffed and even to him it sounded childish.

Merlin laughed and pulled his ear. Something about it wounded Arthur in a flash. He'd assumed for a second that Merlin wanted him, had felt some hint of genius that made him desire him. But he was just helping him because he was a kid. And why did he like to sleep with kids anyway?

"Don't be a stranger, OK?" Merlin's voice was hoarse, as if the massage had weakened him or something. Then he turned away and came back with Arthur's clothes.

So this was over then.

"You can just dump those." Arthur hoped he sounded unmoved by the obvious cue, but Merlin still lingered there with his stupid, boyish clothes in his arms.

"No. I want to dress you."

The faded jeans and undervest were limp things. Merlin shook each one out with care and laid them out on the bed.

He pulled the white shirt over Arthur's head and Arthur relaxed completely, letting Merlin raise his hand up to pull clear of the sleeve, because to fight would be more embarrassing than to comply. Then his compliance irked him beyond what common sense told him, to be quiet, to pull back to himself.

"Don't you think I feel like enough of a child compared to you, without you doing this?"

There was a pause. Arthur knew from a brief flash across his face, he had somehow hurt Merlin by saying that.

"You are wrong," he said, the resonance gone from his voice, "I would not perform this service for anything other than a man, and a gentleman would let me have the pleasure."

"Yeah, well I'm not either of those things, am I?"

Merlin just shook his head, continued to pull the trousers up over Arthur's feet. 

"Stop it."

"OK." Merlin sat back on his heels and waited.

Arthur was frustrated to find he had tears in his eyes. He wanted to be angry. He wasn't angry; it was just impossible to say why he was so humiliated by attention that he didn't understand. He yanked his trousers up and found his feet.

I mean I'm not the man here, am I? I never even fucked you, yeah? Is that what he used to do, the other guy I'm supposed to be?"

Merlin's wince told him he'd found his target. "Well, I know how to role play." He found his words biting out of him, intuiting what would hurt, though he didn't know why. "I can fuck you like him if you like."

Merlin stared at him, agape for a moment before giving a wry grin, one he'd borrowed back from the first time he saw Arthur, when he'd thought Arthur wasn't anybody in particular, just somebody Percy picked up.

It hurt Arthur's heart for some reason.

"Well you are a cheeky devil, aren't you?" Merlin's hand reached out to stroke Arthur's face in slow motion, the way a woman will touch a dress she can't afford. "Maybe next time."

Arthur watched Merlin reassemble his baggy woolen clothes with a numb feeling. It wasn't the kind of numb of not caring, but more like how he felt had been choked off. he wished Merlin hadn't said that. Arthur knew what next time meant. It meant never. 

Indeed, once they were dressed the slender man was all business, turning on lights, flirting and laughing. 

"For you, I'm always in, alright?" Merlin gave him a last buss to either cheek. 

kiss kiss. 

"This is my code number for the door, well for everything really." He turned his own wrist, so the tattoo showed 12:16:83.

He layered another kiss on Arthur's forehead, over where Percy had kissed him before. It felt like saying "Merry Christmas": warm, impersonal, good for now, but not for later.

They were in the hall now. And Arthur just stood there frozen, accepted his shoes as Merlin handed them over, finding himself cracking open his grimace to laugh at himself as he started hopping around, off balance trying to put the first one on without relinquishing the other. Merlin's laugh was full and young sounding, as he snatched away the offending shoe. His eyes were twinkling again. Arthur forgave him everything. All the awkwardness was probably his imagination anyway.

Then Merlin was patting him on the bum and shooing him out the door before Arthur even registered what the tatooed number was: His birthday. 

"Wait. Hold on! What does that number mean?" His voice wasn't loud enough. There was no response, just a slow -closing door.

He wished that Percy was there to explain what that meant; he turned with the thought and caught the door. It was flung wide, but the view of the flat revealed only halls and dark rooms and Arthur's own face in the hall mirror. Both men were out of sight. he listened for their voices, their movements.

Arthur hadn't seen Percy since he left for the shower. He heard his heavy footsteps now. He could call out to him, at least, glad that it wasn't Merlin. Percy would be easier to talk to. Arthur opened his mouth and then closed it again. 

How could he ask? It would be too embarrassing to ask, when the evening was so obviously over. He had no call on these men. They were lovers, partners; he was just a one night stand, some kid who reminded them of someone else. 

He let the momentum of the door swing it shut, waited almost until the last second, when he felt a compulsion to turn back before it closed, hoping to get one last look at the two men together. He pushed the door open one last time, a crack, and was just in time to see, in the square of light at the end of the hall, how Percy took the other man in his arms. 

Merlin was collapsed on Percy, no trace of his fey joking or perfect posture. They were rocking together. Then the door snicked closed.

"I think I'll go with you next time," he heard Merlin say, his voice muffled by the door. 

Arthur felt like he was spying. He hurried away, taking the steps two at a time because he did not want to be locked up with himself in the elevator. The echo, squeak and thump of his trainers made it's own rhythm and he concentrated on that. 

He wasn't ready to think about the big man and the slender one and the other boy, the one who wasn't there. It could be he loved what they did. It could be he was sick at himself.

He didn't know if he would see them again, if he wanted to.

He didn't know what to make of the experience. He didn't know what it was he felt. 

He just knew he couldn't live his life the same way anymore

**Author's Note:**

> For those who found this ending a bit dismal, I am posting the original much more chipper fic I cannibalized to write this one. What's Love Got to Do With It.


End file.
